Trangu Gompa / Thrangu Gompa / 禅古寺 Yushu, QinghaLatesti Province

Just off the main road between Yushu and the airport，on the other side of the river and up the hill, is the Trangu Gompa 禅古寺. The main chapel is a modern building, surrounded by traditionally built monks’ living quarters. The complex might seem rather unremarkable at a fist glance, and a little bit ramshackle. However, don’t let first impressions put you off: once you are inside the main building, you’ll be dazzled by a feast of vibrant colours and stunning paintings that will bring about a “wow” reaction even from those who may have seen one temple too many. Our local driver was shaking his head in disbelief that he hadn’t known what was inside the main monastery building; “tai piaoliang, tai piaoliang (it’s so beautiful),” he kept repeating.
The monastery employed artists from Tongren (Repkong), the most renowned in the Tibetan world and whose works can be found in Tibetan monasteries as far as [Read more →]

Zhira Gompa (吉然寺) –Yushu – Qinghai Province.

What’s a Sky Burial?

“Sky burial or ritual dissection was once a common funerary practice in Tibet wherein a human corpse is cut in specific locations and placed on a mountaintop, exposing it to the elements or the mahabhuta and animals – especially to birds of prey. In Tibet the practice is known as jhator (Tibetan: བྱ་གཏོར་; Wylie: bya gtor), which literally means, “giving alms to the birds.”

The majority of Tibetans adhere to Buddhism, which teaches rebirth. There is no need to preserve the body, as it is now an empty vessel. Birds may eat it, or nature may let it decompose. So the function of the sky burial is simply the disposal of the remains. In much of Tibet the ground is too hard and rocky to dig a grave, and with fuel and timber scarce, a sky burial is often more practical than cremation.” (quote taken from Wiki-pedia)

The grisly details and other considerations.

I’ve never gone out of my way to see a Sky Burial, though I’ve had the opportunity. In Litang, [Read more →]

Princess Wencheng Temple 文成公主庙

Spectacular, stunning, other-worldly, an extravaganza of colour, are just some of the adjectives you’ll be spluttering to anyone you meet after a visit to the Princess Wencheng Temple. And this before you have actually seen the temple which, in all truth, is nice, but nothing special. It is the Kora, the sacred pilgrims’ trail performed by walking around, or circumambulating, a temple, that provokes such awe and stupor. Even veteran travellers to Tibet will find themselves struggling to recall anything like it.

History

The temple was supposedly built to mark the spot where Princess Wencheng and her husband, the Tibetan King Songtsän Gampo, stopped for a month on their journey from Xian to Tibet. The marriage of the Tang dynasty Princess, a niece of Emperor Taizong, to the Tibetan King is celebrated by both the Chinese and Tibetans; though their interpretation of the events varies. The Chinese claim it was Princess Wencheng who brought Buddhism to Tibet, by converting her husband; the Tibetans dispute this. According to the Tibetans, Songtsän Gampo forced the Tang Emperor to hand over his niece, after a string of military victories over the Chinese and their allies. In the Chinese point of view, the Princess’s hand was offered as a sign of friendship, to seal the long lasting bond between the Chinese and Tibetan peoples. There is even a famous Chinese opera that corroborates this view.

Location

Leba Gorge 勒巴沟

About 20 kilometres to the south of Yushu (玉树) lies the incredibly scenic Leba Gorge. The Leba Gorge is a magnificent valley full of rushing rivers, wild flowers and painted, sacred rocks. Its vast, open grasslands are inhabited by yaks and wild marmots and its changing, threatening skies are crossed by soaring eagles.
Visitors can access the gorge from a clearly marked entry point near the Yangtze River, drive all the way through and end up at the Princess Wencheng Temple(文成公主庙); which is precisely what we did:
A couple of kilometres down a bumpy track that precariously hugs the mountainside, with the rushing river beside and below us, our car is stopped at what seems to be a makeshift roadblock. Here, a dodgy ticket system is run by some rather shady- looking characters. We are charged [Read more →]

As I observed the scene from the upper berth on the overnight sleeper from Xining to Yushu, memories of China’s famous scenic mountain Huangshan flooded back. The upper-tier beds seemed to be floating in a sea of clouds, just like the famous rocks and gnarled pines of Huangshan and, as happens on that mountain, occasionally everything was swallowed up by an enveloping mist. Except that the clouds and the mist on our bus were no manifestation of the bracing and refreshing mountain air, but rather a thick curtain of acrid cigarette smoke, rising up from our fellow passengers on the beds below.
Initially, Margie and I were quite relieved when we saw our bus at Xining bus station: at first sight it looked pretty new and clean; even the bedding was quite passable. Our upper berths right at the front of the bus seemed comfortable enough and, even more importantly, there were no-smoking signs everywhere. Encouraged by these favorable impressions, we began to look forward to the trip. Of course, we should have known better.

While in the more developed eastern parts of China non-smoking rules on public transport are usually enforced quite strictly, previous experience had taught us that the situation in the remote areas of western China could be very different. The Chinese have a fabulous saying that sums up how rules are enforced, or not, the further you are from Beijing: “Heaven is high and the Emperor is far away” (tian gao huang di yuan天高皇帝远). And indeed, the emperor seemed a long way away as the two drivers boarded the bus, cigarettes dangling from their mouths, [Read more →]

We visited the Qinghai town of Tongren in 2004. It seems that over the past few years it has become quite a popular destination. The stunning scenery along the road that crosses the wild grasslands from Xiahe in Gansu Province is one of the great journeys in China (and it is only about 5 hours.)

The Monasteries around Tongren are famous for their thangkas (The Tibetan Paintings you see in the Monasteries). This year when we explored the area around Yushu we visted the Trangu Gompa. The new monastery building had been completely painted by artists from Tongren. The scenes from the Buddhist hell were particularly impressive. We’ll put them up soon. But for now here are some pictures of Buddhist hell from Tongren’s Longwu Monastery.

Imagine pigging out on prawns, clams, razor fish and other weird and wonderful critters lying around in buckets in Xining, the capital of remote and landlocked Qinghai province. Well, that is exactly what thousands of Xining’s residents do every night. Xining may seem an unlikely place to enjoy a delicious fresh seafood meal, but Daxin Jie in the city centre is home to a host of restaurants, specialising in Wenzhou style seafood.

Wenzhou, in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang, is renowned for its fabulous fresh seafood and fish. In Madrid where we live, about 90% of the Chinese come from Wenzhou and nearby Qingtian. Over the years, many of these homesick immigrants have abandoned the typical spring roll and fried rice restaurants, adapted to the local Spanish taste, and inaugurated some amazingly authentic Wenzhou style restaurants instead, catering for the burgeoning Chinese community. So it was with a sense of recognition, but a large degree of incredulity as well, that we saw that nearly half the restaurants in Daxin Jie announced themselves as Wenzhou Haixian Fandian 温州海鲜饭店 (Wenzhou Seafood Restaurant).
The Wenzhou style of cooking places emphasis on the taste of the product, rather than on [Read more →]

Tucked away in a steeply forested valley, Youning Si (Rgolung in Tibetan), a monastery belonging to the Gelugpa order (or the Yellow Hat Sect), is a fantastic hidden gem and makes for a great day trip from Xining. The setting is gorgeous: a couple of large, colourful monasteries that line the road up the valley mark the beginning of the pilgrims’ trail. From here, gaggles of pilgrims climb up the steep paths, half-smothered by lush vegetation and covered in prayer flags, which skirt the flanks of the mountain and lead to a scattering of small chapels and shrines, perched high on the hillside, their golden roofs gleaming from the distance. On rainy days, such as the day of our visit, the muddy paths can get quite treacherous. Needless to say that the pilgrims, including the frail old grannies and small toddlers, skip along the trails, ignoring the hairy bits. We on the other hand, with our clumsy feet and exaggerated fear of heights, held everybody up as we hesitantly negotiated the steepest parts.
At first sight, Youning Si could easily be mistaken for a typical Tibetan Monastery: the 200 or so shaven- headed monks (there once used to be 7000) wandering around in dark red robes, the temple decoration, the images of the deities, the photos of famous Lamas that adorn the altars, are all just as you would find them in any Tibetan monastery.
And yet, there is something different about Youning Si: the monastery [Read more →]

The Tibetan town of Yushu in Qinghai province is completely open (August 2009). There had been several reports that it was closed, or travel in and around the town was being severly restricted. We found it very open and relaxed with no limits on where we could travel so long as we didn’t try to cross into actual Tibet. The only thing banned was the annual horse racing festival. The authorities apprantly feared what might happen if thousands of Tibetans got together.

The new airport had opened too. With either daily or twice weekly flights (depending on who you asked) for around 1,100 yuan to 1,300 Yuan for a one way ticket.

The 18.00 luxury sleeper bus (16 hours) is probably the best way to get to Yushu. However, the ride is made uncomfortable by the heavy smoking of your fellow passengers. The drivers all smoke as well despite signs everywhere saying it is prohibited. Avoid the last seats on a sleeper bus as you are cramped into a very tight and claustrophobic space at the back with 5 other people.